Do you add salt to your freshwater tank?

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

lilcam

Aquarium Advice Newbie
Joined
Aug 11, 2004
Messages
2
Location
philly, pa
Currently treating my tank with salt because one of my fishes have ich. After the process is done and I've successfully remove the ich, should I continue to add salt to help reduce stress? If so, how much are we talking about?
 
depends on what fish are in there. if any plecos or corys are in there id take the infected fish or the pleco/corys out. if you dont then u can just treat the whole tank
 
oh ... i have a pleco. should i have taken him out before i started my salt treatment? Totally forgot about him!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
The pleco should probably be able to tolerate the salt for the treatment of ich. Long term there is no reason you need to add salt to the tank. Some do, because they feel it is beneficial, but I am not one of them.
 
I add a very small amount of salt. At each pwc that is normally 4 to 5 gal I add 1/4 teaspoon. This is well below the 1 teaspoon per 5 gal on the package.
 
Welcome to AA, lilcam!

Good question!

Advocates of salt say that it lowers stress by making it slightly easier for the FW fish to osmoregulate. In addition, the chloride ions present in dissolved sodium chloride, reduce the poisonous effects of nitrite. Taken at face value, this seems like a no-brainer, good thing to do.

But, salt is not tolerated well by scaleless fish like corys, by most FW inverts, and by some FW plants. Critics point out that its addition adds another variable to the tank that must be monitored and taken into account. Even with partial water changes, the salt levels may climb due to ongoing evaporation. This would happen to a larger degree in small tanks.

I used to add salt when I first set up my tank, but I stopped because the consensus opinion here was against it. I've found that ost people here subscribe to the K.I.S.S. philosophy regarding water additives. I don't think the fish miss salt and I don't think it would have prevented any of the problems I have run across since I stopped using it. I stopped using carbon a long time ago for the same reasons: it never produced a noticeable benefit and its absence never resulted in any noticeable problems.
 
Back
Top Bottom